A lecture-performance by Zach Blas and Jemima Wyman that examines landscapes of resistance and surveillance patterns through consideration of two premises: 1) visual patterns used in protest movements to camouflage, and 2) emerging informatic patterns generated by cutting-edge surveillance technologies and algorithms.

“Pattern-of-life analysis” is an informatic mode of militarized surveillance that uses tracking, data aggregation, and predictive software to generate a pattern of a person’s life, for the purposes of security and policing. Pattern-of-life analysis draws attention to the fact that power and domination produce their own patterns, and these patterns are primarily informatic in nature, not only visual.

While these patterns may appear to be abstractions of life, they are, in fact, resolutely material and historical. Fabric is material and historical—and so is information. Thus, an adequate pattern of resistance today must be one that can function both visually and informatically.

Credits

Commissioned by the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia.